WaReefer458
05/26/2016, 07:44 PM
Well, after my 40 has been up for about 9 months and having a constant struggle with nitrates and keeping everything stable I finally had an all out crash last weekend. No matter how often I was doing water changes, my nitrates would creep up slowly week by week. After a suggestion by a friend to start vodka dosing, that was what finally did me in. About 2 months ago the tank was clean even with the nitrate issues but I decided to redo my rock. My Lfs said I probably stirred up a bunch of silicates when I dug the sand bed up and caused a diatom outbreak. I've been dealing with that for about a month. I was vodka dosing the reccomended amout of .2ml a day and on day 4 I found 3 dead fish and almost all my corals took a dump. Glass was so covered in algae that you could barely see thru it. I couldn't see any signs over the weekend that I had livestock issues as the lights are off by the time I get home. After doing some water changes and trying to vacuum out what I could, the tank looks much better.
However.... I've finally bit the bullet and bought 3 phosban 150 reactors to which I will be running rowaphos, xport no3, and carbon. I may end up doing bio pellets instead of the carbon but time will tell. I plumbed in a manifold and got the rowaphos reactor up and going yesterday. Seems to be working as the diatoms and hair algae are starting to come off the rocks. I'll update this when I get the no3 reactor up and going to give real time numbers of how well it works.
However.... I've finally bit the bullet and bought 3 phosban 150 reactors to which I will be running rowaphos, xport no3, and carbon. I may end up doing bio pellets instead of the carbon but time will tell. I plumbed in a manifold and got the rowaphos reactor up and going yesterday. Seems to be working as the diatoms and hair algae are starting to come off the rocks. I'll update this when I get the no3 reactor up and going to give real time numbers of how well it works.